Recent Vinyl Releases from Metric, The Trews, Voivod and Clutch.

Let’s get caught up on a few recent new vinyl releases from this past week. Lots of Canadian content featured here with the newest albums from Metric, Voivod and The Trews. Plus the latest release from Maryland rockers Clutch has hit the shelves here at Backbeat. The vinyl version of J. Cole’s album “KOD” from earlier this year has also been released.

If you don’t visit us on Facebook you can find our latest “flippin” video of the recent used/vintage vinyl we put out on the weekend. It will be way down below the new stuff.

Let’s get right to it and dig into all the details on these recent new releases.

Metric – Art of Doubt
Metric are a band with an eclectic, adventurous outlook, whose music encompasses elements of synth pop, new wave, dance-rock, and electronica and whose hometown has vacillated between Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and London over the course of the group’s existence.
Metric’s story began in 1998, when vocalist/keyboardist Emily Haines met guitarist James Shaw in Toronto, Canada. Although born in New Delhi, Haines — the daughter of Paul Haines, a Canadian-American poet best known for his collaboration with jazz artist Carla Bley — had moved to town by the age of three. While studying at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, a high school for aspiring artists in Toronto, she met fellow students Amy Millan and Kevin Drew, future members of Stars and Broken Social Scene. After attending university in Vancouver and Montreal, she returned to Toronto in 1997 and eventually crossed paths with the British-born Shaw, who’d relocated to Toronto following three years of study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. Haines and Shaw discovered they were musically simpatico and began writing songs together.

Voivod – Wake
The only predictable thing about Canadian cosmic-metal warriors Voivod is that they will forever be unpredictable. On the warpath for more than 35 years, Voivod have pushed their sound relentlessly forward, constructing imaginative musical realms with each endeavor. They literally changed the face of thrash metal in the ‘80s, forged new prog-metal ground in the ‘90s, and kept up with changing times and lineups in the 2000s with fresh, inspired music. In 2018, Voivod’s 14th studio album, The Wake, is upon us. The band’s original members, drummer Michel “Away” Langevin and vocalist Denis “Snake” Belanger, find themselves reinvigorated and reenergized by the presence of guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain and new bassist Dominic “Rocky” Laroche. The Wake steers the Voivod spacecraft through a tangled, tantalizing storyline, woven into the most maze-like, edge-of-your-seat musical experience the band have embarked upon since those heady days of the late ‘80s. The Wake is a conceptual and incredibly captivating slice of sonic escape from the masters of extraterrestrial metal, and an album that sits confidently next to the many top-tier achievements of their past.

Trews – Civilianaires
You’d think a celebrated veteran band like The Trews with countless radio hits, ecstatic fans from Dublin to Des Moines plus multiple EPs, a pair of live albums and a retrospective would regard studio album number six as a cinch.

After all, it’s their career equivalent to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti or REM’s Green, the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and The Tragically Hip’s Phantom Power; the apex of decades-long musical ingenuity arriving at a juncture where there is nothing, truly not one thing, left to prove.

Yet you’d be dead wrong. In what can only be described as a rage against stasis, The Trews approached Civilianaires, their electrifying and wildly original follow-up to 2014’s The Trews, the way a contractor tackles a kitchen reno: tearing things down to the studs, then building out piece by new piece.

“We’re almost in existential-crisis-mode if we don’t have new songs we’re excited about,” guitarist/songwriter John-Angus MacDonald howls on behalf of singer/songwriter Colin MacDonald and bassist Jack Syperek. “With us it’s always ‘What’s next?’ We’re most galvanized while we’re creating. And this new album is a completely fresh take on what we’ve done before.”

Clutch – Book Of Bad Decisions
Maryland rockers Clutch have released their 12th studio album “Book of Bad Decisions”.

The album was recorded at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, TN by producer Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather) and consists of 15 new tracks.

“With Vance Powell as producer we were able to make a very different kind of an album. The songs feel as if they could jump out of the speakers!” says drummer Jean-Paul Gaster. Bassist Dan Maines seconds that when he says “Recording in Nashville with Vance Powell gave us a new and fresh approach towards making an album that truly captures the live energy of Clutch in a way I don’t think we’ve done before.” Guitarist Tim Sult adds “Laying down guitar tracks with Vance was fun and inspiring. Going through and trying out his and his engineer, Mike Fahey’s collection of vintage amps was one of my favorite recording studio experiences. I think the outro solo of “Emily Dickinson” turned out particularly great.”

J. Cole – KOD
KOD (an initialism for Kids on Drugs, King Overdosed and Kill Our Demons) is the fifth studio album by American rapper J. Cole. It was first released on CD April 20, 2018 through Dreamville Records, Roc Nation and Interscope Records. Production on the album was primarily handled by Cole himself, along with others such as T-Minus, Mark Pelli, Deputy and Childish Major. The album explores a variety of topics including drug abuse, addiction, depression, and African-American culture.